First, get used to the idea of Aston Martin relaunching the old-school Lagonda brand. Then swallow hard at this super-luxo Lagonda Concept itself, a posh BMW X6-alike which is deadly serious for production in 2012. Then prepare for another shock: it’s the sort of bastard half-cousin of a Mercedes GL.
The Lagonda is taller, heavier and more off-road-ish than any Aston, including the four-door Rapide. That means Aston’s own aluminium structure and chassis just won’t to do the job.
Aston Martin has been having chats with Mercedes for some time, and the Germans allowed the Brits to use the GL chassis and suspension for the Lagonda. A final agreement hasn’t been signed, but Aston’s boss Ulrich Bez told Foreman it’s unlikely to change for production.
The concept has Aston’s own V12, and that too will be kept for production, though retuned for more torque top suit the car. But Bez agrees that Mercedes’ hybrid and diesel powertrains could also make their way into the Lagonda.
Why a new brand instead of calling it an Aston Martin? Bez says it’s because Aston has to remain pure sports. He claims that for a while after Porsche launched the Cayenne people got confused about what Porsche was for – sports cars or 4x4s. So his plan is to have Astons and Lagondas branded independently, but sold from opposite ends of the same dealers.
But even with the bought-in platform, engineering the Lagonda will be a huge challenge. Bez says that unless he gets more investment in Aston Martin soon, or by a miracle sales of Astons pick up, there isn’t the money to bring the Lagonda to fruition.
We have, incidentally, had it confirmed by an extremely high-level source that Aston and Mercedes talked last year about using Aston providing its low-volume aluminium chassis expertise for the next Maybach. This would have made a good swap for the GL bits in the Lagonda.
But that Maybach project is on hold at the moment. Mercedes doesn’t really know what it wants to do with Maybach, have been giving a thorough kicking by Rolls-Royce.
(This is mine comment at the news article. No need of changes)
Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah, nice joke really. Seriously now show the real car. Ah? Isn’t a joke? (i was just wondering about the designer and project manager faces when will see the world wide comment and all the “how can they think to produce an uglier x6 and sell it for 3/4 rolls price???” stories. Fantastic!)
Let me guess, the options list will include some 24″ spinners? An old-school Pablo Escobar Lagonda over this tasteless rapper/oil baron mobile any day please!
It really is astoundingly hideous
There are some details on it I actually quite like – the wraparound windscreen and the roof for instance. But… it’s hideous.
Part Mitsubishi, part Lexus, part Chrysler.. and all embarrassing. I’d like to see the interior to see what treatment AM feel a car of this type deserves, but the exterior is so derivative and.. well, cheap looking that I can’t see anyone rushing for their chequebook.
what the hell is that? who designed this thing? i was drawing better stuff at school when i was bored to death during the math’s lesson
When i knew there’d be a new Aston Martin, i was so excited, I looked at it, and was dissapointed. It was a great looking car for a infinity or nissan (same thing really), but an Aston Martin? No. The one-77, the 1st pictures looked good, the picture of it on the road in metalic silver didn’t look that nice, but the new pictures make it look stunning. That’s what Astons need to be. Stunning. So this new car doesn’t really amaze me. It’s pathetic.
A Aston Off-roader just doesn’t sound right. It’s like land rover making a V12 super car or ferrari making an eco car. They have made it look futuristic but it doesn’t convince me. Stick to making great concepts like the One-77, or the incredible Aston V12 Vantage, they are both biblicaly fast and biblicaly cool.
@Kuang, the interior is probably the same as any normal Aston like the DBS,very comfortable and great for long journeys but still full of bits from ford and volvo
P.S. Thanks Paul for another great blog
This is why the word ‘Fugly’ was invented.
A car like this from aston should not go a head and it should if they want an SUV it have got to be a crossw between DB9 and X6 with like V12 and V8 this could be great. It just an ugyl car fall stop and is this new styling driction for aston i hope not it is not. Oh yeah i thinkk benltey SUV would be great.
my dead dogs face looks better, and that was hit by a car!
it´s art, ..so utterly useless it per definition can not be anything else ! Aston should expose the responsible surrealist draftsman and we should cut his ear off…
it looks hideous, i really want a nice X5 – like car, but nice
this is just stupid
I have seen rabid dogs that were maliciously disfigured by bears wielding fire extinguishers that look better than that monstrousity.
btw Paul, do you have chief designer´s name ? Who is he ? Was this what he dreamt of at 13 ? What else is he responsible for ? Would it be possible to include some designer´s portraits on the blog ?
thnx, foxy-woxy
ie, this is the car and This, is the man responsible.., just to let us know who to praise and who to hate…
Did anyone read the article or not!? Is clearly says its NOT AN ASTON MARTIN. Thats my first problem with the people who have made stupid comments on this article. My other problem is people are saying that its ugly, now the X6 terribly ugly and the Lagonda (note i said Lagonda not Aston Martin) is clearly not ugly. With brilliant low roof line and coupe curves it looks fantastic! Oh and before you go off and think that i am just saying good thing about the Lagonda because Aston Martin make them I AM NOT, ok?
I really like this! Contrary to popular opinion, I think this looks like a cross between a mitsubishi evo x (great-looking car), that concept car Land Rover showed about six months (another great-looking car), and a few hints from aston’s best efforts. PLEASE REMEMBER THIS IS NOT MEANT TO BE A JACKED-UP ASTON!
Anyway, if Mr. Bez is going to keep Aston Martin’s fortunes heading in the right direction, he’ll have to make sure this car is a seriously good piece of engineering,to compensate for the general public reaction to this car, much like the one-77 will have to be to compensate for that stratospheric price tag.
But still, I really like the way bsuch a tiny company is being so bold and going to places where not many way bigger companies have gone before.Keep up the brilliant work, Mr Bez and cronies!!
Aston and Mercedes are getting too cosy for my liking. I think the Lagonda is fairly woeful looking and the overly luxurious SUV is not a particularly good line for any car company to be going down. But the real issue is this sharing of parts with Mercedes, pretty soon it will be a “let’s get together” merger like Daimler Chrysler that would be disastrous.
HAHAHAHA, the only reason people actually bought astons in the first place was because they were beautiful, but well what are they going to think now!? Plus, any idea how much it might cost? I don’t think anyone in their right minds would spend over 100k on something that bad, there are only one group of people that will have the money and bad taste to buy this monstrosity, let me give you an example, Wayne Rooney.
You know the Ferrari Effect, where you think it’s pretty just because it’s a Fezza? Well, maybe we just think it’s ugly because of the ’70s Lagonda…
…no, wait, it’s really a minger. And I’ve seen letterboxes bigger than that rear window.
Oh, and guys, I hope there’s gonna be a news story on the PRODUCTION ONE-77 that’s at Geneva. Seriously, I first clapped eyes on it at MSN Cars of all places.
OMG….
What the f**k???? An Aston off-roader? Oi!! Aston!! NO!! Jeez… It’s got a face only a mother could love.. If that mother was totally blind…. Totally unnatural, like Jo Brand in a Baywatch bikini…. The only good-looking thing I can see is the AM badge…. Euch!!!!
love that car i would have that any day i like aston martins and think they just got better but i hope its as good as an aston martin sports car it looks really nice aswell
actually when you look at it for the second time, im hating the back window, the boot and the grille
Orkneyman001, It’s not actually an SUV. Read the news article. And it doesn’t bear Aston’s wings. It has a Lagonda badge on it.
what ever the badge is irrelevant, look at the design!!! on the pic, Paul pasted t resembles a shoe more than anything else, the 2001 white jordan by Nike just got ripped off.. why why why ? I´m aware of regulations cuffing the designers creativity but this is just, well it´s more wtf than a SsangY ! My God, the Brabus Box G-wagen is a sexy mofa compared to the shape of the Lagonda. Scale it down to 1:2 and you´ve got the Suzuki swift !! Why ??????????????? Mr. BEZ, WHY ??????????
SUV´s look good as a box, RangeRover,X5,G-wagen just to name a few..it´s soo simple Big Box, Big wheels, Big engine a splash of finesse and that´s it.! Look at the cayenne and learn tthe lesson, ppl weren´t confused about Porsches, they bought the Cayenne exactly because it was one, they didn´t buy enough because it is shamefully, distatefully ugly, an aesthetic catastrophe porsche needed hedge funding to survive !! So why in heaven´s name is Mr.Bez trying to prove otherwise by allowing, actually conspiring for an other SUV coup´ ? why ? why ? why ?
this is what happens when manufacturers start nuying into one another and the shit hits the fan… Europe, welcome to America !
nuying=buying…
I’d buy it.
This car is a merge of BMW X6, Bentley Continental GT and Porsche Cayenne. Just goes to prove, 3 wrongs don’t make right!
nothing wrong with it
shamzam, alex can you make any feasable arguments for your comments on the design other than, you think it looks good ? If you´re only 14 combined, you probaly can´t and I recomend you google the history of the automobile or check out an e-type, a db-5 or a scudaria on wikepedia,look at the pictures, READ all those letters and reevaluate your decisions. Than go to bed and dream of the most beatufil thing you could possibly imagine and in the morning when you wake up as yourselves the quetion, why would anyone design a car like this ! thank you.
well. i don’t know what to think. i have read most of the comments, which vary greatly. And my own? well. while not being catastrophically ugly, i am also pleased that it is not an aston-martin.
Hmm. My first thought upon seeing it on the main page was, ‘WTF?’ Having read the article, I’m inclined to agree with myself. It looks like the result of an Evo X and a Nissan Qashqai bumping drunken uglies. Fine if they’re charging £30k, but at Lagonda money it’s surely destined for Edseldom.
they cannot seriously put this overpriced heap of trash into production. I agree with everyone who says that it is shockingly ugly. I would rather have the old Lagonda than this.
I have always liked Astin Martins and mercs but the one thing I have noticed about Astin Martin is that with every car they bring always look the same. The DBZ, DB9 V8 VANTAGE, DBS and the baby Astin they all have the same body shape even though they might be slightly lower and more or less powerfull. I truly hope that the new MERC/ASTIN venture will yield a whole new design and that they do away with the stupid and pointless flappy paddle gear box.
I’ve seen more handsome Russians……
Forgot to mention: it’s even worse from behind. Looks like an Alfa GT with a smacked arse.
This is not an Aston Martin.This is an Aston Kutcher.
To sum up, it’s basically an ugly(er) BMW X6 which handles like a Merc GL. (and that means it handles as good as the Queen Mary). Nice move, Aston. Nevertheless, it’ll probably sell, morons are rich.
Well, Aston have just proven that they’re capable of producing a car as monumentally ugly as their sports cars are monumentally beautiful!
I hope to see this on the roads in the next couple of years so I can have good laugh at the fool who bought it!!
I like the wrap around windscreen, and the wing mirrors, but I hate the front grill and back end. It’s hideous.
did someone remember the ugly Aston Martin Bulldog from 1979, well, now it have a fat sister.
This car is actually quite interesting. The idea, even though a niche, seems cool. Instead of a low slung 4 dr GT car, you might want a large, massive leg room car with huge wheels, elevated height, and a swooping roofline. The idea is interesting and it has potential, but the executions from BMW in the X6 and Lagonda aren’t as great as the idea.
Must try harder Aston…
Catastrophically ugly. The BMW X6 looks better than that thing and thats saying something! What happened??? It looks like…a mutant. I cant wait for Jeremy to sink his teeth into this in the new series
i dont think this car is ugly, its not a pretty car but i think it looks good. sure its no aston martin but then what car ever will be. they are gorgeous.
I have a few changes which would be made to make it ‘slightly’ better looking. Get rid of that bulbous backside for starters. The front end could do with some work as well, such as a more swoopy design. It looks as if part of the front end has been sheared off
This is not Aston,it’s just too ugly…
After one-77,DBS Volante,V12 Vantage,DB9 that looks like Pikaso’s art,this is looking more like my art,and that means-RUBBISH!!!
Aston designers are probably dead,and Mercedes designers took the work in their hands…
This car should be burned,and than thrown to Mars…
I hate name-calling but this car is stupid, ugly, idiotic, is carved out of the ugly stick, and, did I mention, ugly. And stupid.
didnt Saab have a concept car like this 5 yrs ago?
why not just call the rapide a Lagonda then the problem is solved
Aston = 2 seater sexy fast cars
Lagonda = 4 seater sexy fast cars
but please no SUV it will be beaten by the Range Rover then people will ask why they are paying 10 times the price of a range rover for a lagonda Please aston NOOOOOOOO
Oh my God. I just realized I’d rather have a Porsche Cayenne or a BMW X6 than the Lagonda. And I hate both the Beemer and the Porsche. There is no word that can describe how much I loathe them, so “hate” will have to do.
Congratulations. What you have designed is something that makes the X6 and the Cayenne look appealing.
This article makes it so obvious just how biased you top gear guys are towards british cars. That Lagonda manages to be as hideous and pointless as an X6 by sharing a platform with the ridiculously oversized, footballer-wife-spec Merc GL. Both cars have been (rightly so) bashed by the jezza & the guys, still there’s not a word on how awful and out of place that Lagonda actually is.
If german SUV’s are tasteless, wtf is this????
oh, forgot to mention:
that bias is one of many reasons why i love top gear so much
so keep it up!
the desginers were proberbly high on dope desgining this ugly car
Gadzooks, who is the loony that ok’d this? who is the loony that said yes to giving the previous loony a job? omg, in todays economic climate, this is what they come up with? they all deserve to be out of their jobs, with no pensions. whoever said yes to this, and whoever was involved, all want sacking. its a double disgrace that its even mentioned in the same year as ‘lagonda’. thank god that AK47s are not as common here as in yemen, we’d be reading about terrible things happening at aston hq
Lagonda’s aren’t about being beautiful, efficient or even functional. Remember the last one? Most Trekkie buttons didn’t work, because back then no-one had invented the things they were supposed to do. Pre PC-time.
Maybe this one isn’t even eccentric enough. Bez, make it madder than this plz. Make it not work, make it way uglier, make it expensive with nothing to show for it. Give it terrain gearing without 4×4 or something.
Ouch! Merc is no inspiration here as their suv’s ride like boats and are also sooo dreadfully ugly!!!!! Hope Bez never gets the bucks to get this thing into production…
Looks fantastic
I think i just vomitted…
I like it, looks a bit ugly though, need nore pics
The Lagonda is awful. Looks as bad as an BMW X3.
They should have made something to rival the RR200EX. But better, with a V16. A 2dr would be nice too. Shame, no-one seems to have the guts anymore to make a decent car. STUPID SUVs are destroying socity and good cars.
i wonder if they were to take this how much they wud charge, cos it competes with the X6 another fugly car, so does that mean it would be in the same price range of 50-60k. If so what wud u rather have ? a bmw or an aston and a merc offspring called a lagonda ?
Seemed ugly to me at first glimpse as well, but…
the more I look at it, the more I like the design.
Quite the ugly bugger, copying few looks from the Q7
I think it looks like a mix between a saab SUV
and some retard like an X6 and fat useless wreck of a GL! Aston say they make beuatiful cars; but it makes John Prescot look like Uma Thurman!!!!
PS I LOVE TOP GEAR
(death to all 5th gear veiwers
YOU’re all fat useless wrecks who watch it on dave.)
WHO SPEND THE REST OF THEIR TIME ON BEBO IN PYJAMAS
HANG ON…… did some retard say it looks good?
Comment 61? It looks like was made by a blind man who was drunk.
Fair enough, one of the most hideous Mercs needed to make this hideous Aston
Send it to hell. And then send it even further down until it pops out of the other end of the Earth and reaches the edge of the universe.
For the love of… er… Stig? Please Aston Martin, I beg you, do not make this car. It is uglier than a mole on Kenn Dodd’s backside, and it will probably sell even worse. This car will ruin you! Thank goodness you haven’t got the moeny to build this monstrosity yet…
this has got to be one of the ugliest cars going if they wanted to do a lagonda the should have revisited the vignale concept of 1993
I soooo agree with you guys isn’t awful!!!!!
I love the DB9! Its my favourite car on earth!
DB9 FOREVER!
sorry – actually meant this face-
Sorry again- i meant this-
no not that!this-
grrrrr! maybe this- :-0
aah that didnt activate!
I <3 Top Gear!
That’s one aston that won’t be on my fantasy christmas list.
I agree it looks hideous
Whats with SUVs these days? You don’t need a higher driving position and wheels the size of your house for a good car – most of these things don’t even go offroad anyways. And that backside- hideous.
This is why you must buy the new Dacia Duster.
yes and the price is sometimes double if you by a big heavy ugly 4*4 instead of a stasjonwagon i just dont see the point of it and no one use it ofroad
Now that everyone seems to be excited doing big, ugly and unfortunately enormously popular luxury SUVs (Porsche, BMW and now Aston/Lagonda), why not try something different? Like a shooting brake, or an MPV. Or a commercial vehicle.
Please, Aston Martin, please, for once do the Lagonda brand a favour and bring it back with something less controversial that everyone can enjoy: that means not with something that looks like a badly cut slice of cheese or with the latest attrocity, a jacked up allegro. In future, if you are going to build a concept car and suddenly realise you have designed a complete stinker, then please don’t just think you can saddle the lagonda name with it! Call it a british leyland or an AMC or something…
It’s very strange what i am reading here ! If they would use the platform of the GL to make the Lagonda SUV, then what could be a decent reason for a client to not buy the GL AMG with full optionals and pay the 1/2 of what you need to pay for the Lagonda wich is basically the same car with different design and settings? It’s like choosing between Touareg, Cayenne and Q7 but with much much higher price differences.
Wake up Aston !!
Aston Martin is the best car james bond would be pleased.
Wot on earth, this is probaly to expensive to take offroad. This is going to be a stupid idea very imaginative and stylish but is going to be as good offroad as a x5 or x3.
this Lagonda concept is about as intelligent as the comments on this chain.. Mr.Bez, your spot in heaven is not an option, it´s guaranteed !
este foarte marfa
astonishingly ugly!
I see it just like the old Lagondas, a technologically and design driven failure. How could anyone at aston do that.
Erm. I guess I’m just one of five people in the world to like this car. You can’t argue about personal taste anyway. Don’t freak out over people who like lemons because you prefer oranges.
Either way, wasn’t this car *not* meant to be an SUV? If they’d lower it a bit, it would make more sense. We’ll see how it works when they get the production car out.
It looks like the bottom half of a Rover P5 & the sci-fi roofline of a Saab X concept car! Not the family pedigree that you would want.
This is the ugliest thing I’ve seen for a while.
Seriously.
I’d like to sign a Stop Marek Reichman! petition.
I think Aston Martin have ruined themselves there,The Rapide is Much more Aston Martin. The Lagonda is a bit of a 4 BY 4
Why can’t silly designers get more taste , its hideous and its getting merc and aston a bad reputation , sporst car and luxury car makers are making bad cars like porsche with the cayenne and panerma , there desperate . Aston should stick for gorgeous supercars . totally grose
Its the kind of aston my mum would get , grose and will probably be overprised
I could come up with a better design if I closed my eyes and drew with my feet.
It’s blinded, me, It’s actually blinded me!
Dear god why?!
Abomination! The white whale breaches! Arg, bring me my harpoon, Queequeg!
Please do it right now. I love it to read something about this theme.
It’s your discovery, good job!
You gathered the useful information people would find interesting here.
Thanks for the writing this! I’m new at this game so am trying to catch up.
I want to make some contribute to foreman.blogs.topgear.com
A useful guide
how to remove background music and keep the vocals?
there is software that can reduce the frequency of the sound but depending how the song was compiled there is a 50-50 chance that it will work and then there is another 25-25 chance on the positive that it will return you the results what you want. i would lurk music forums and see if you can get a more experienced answer. I would suggest “trance addict forums” which you can google to find.